A short introduction to feminist movements, currents and ideologies

Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women.

Liberal feminism:

primarily focuses on women’s ability to show and maintain their equality through their own actions and choices.

argues that our society holds the false belief that women are, by nature, less intellectually and physically capable than men, it tends to discriminate against women in the academy, the forum, and the marketplace. Liberal feminists believe that “female subordination is rooted in a set of customary and legal constraints that blocks women’s entrance to and success in the so-called public world” and they work hard to emphasize the equality of men and women through political and legal reform

Terms:

procedural accounts of personal autonomy: in order for women to enjoy personal autonomy, they should have a broad range of autonomy-enabling conditions, such as: being free of violence and the threat of violence, being free of the limits set by paternalistic and moralistic laws, having access to options

Ecofeminism

connects the exploitation and domination of women with that of the environment; ecofeminism argues that there is a connection between women and nature that comes from their shared history of oppression by a patriarchal Western society.

Terms:

deep ecology: the philosophy that environmental problems stem from a human-centered ideological position. They can only be solved when the needs of nature are put first or on the same level as human needs.

a category of feminism, most often known for the application of transgender discourses to feminist discourses, and of feminist beliefs to transgender discourse".

often criticizes the ideas of a universal sisterhood - instead, transfeminists view gender as a multifaceted set of diverse intrinsic and social qualities. For example, there are trans/cis men/women who express themselves in an unusually feminine or masculine way. Because this strongly affects how the person experiences their gender, and also their standing within patriarchy, transfeminists would argue that masculine/feminine expression is an important concept worthy of feminist inquiry, to be compared and contrasted with both birth sex and gender identity.

Anarcha-feminism

views patriarchy as a manifestation of involuntary coercive hierarchy that should be replaced by decentralized voluntary association. Anarcha-feminists believe that the struggle against patriarchy is an essential part of class struggle, and the anarchist struggle against the state. In essence, the philosophy sees anarchist struggle as a necessary component of feminist struggle and vice-versa.

an important aspect is its opposition to traditional concepts of family, education and gender roles; the institution of marriage is one of the most widely opposed.

Terms:

free love: a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. Its initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery. It claimed that such issues were the concern of the people involved, and no one else

Black feminism

argues that sexism, class oppression, and racism are inextricably bound together. The way these relate to each other is called intersectionality. Forms of feminism that strive to overcome sexism and class oppression but ignore race can discriminate against many people, including women, through racial bias. Black feminist theory has argued that black women are positioned with in structures of power in fundamentally different ways than white women. Black feminist organizations emerged during the 1970s and face many difficulties from both the white feminist and black nationalist political organizations they were confronting. These women fought against suppression from the larger movements in which many of its members came from.

Terms:

intersectionality: examining how various biological, social and cultural categories such as gender, race, class, ability, sexual orientation, and other axes of identity interact on multiple and often simultaneous levels, contributing to systematic social inequality. Intersectionality holds that the classical conceptualizations of oppression within society, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and religion-based bigotry, do not act independently of one another; instead, these forms of oppression interrelate, creating a system of oppression that reflects the "intersection" of multiple forms of discrimination.

matrix of domination: a sociological paradigm that explains issues of oppression that deal with race, class, and gender, which, though recognized as different social classifications, are all interconnected. As an example: many argue that Colin Powell’s success (as one Black man out of millions) is proof that discrimination based on race has been, or is close to being, eradicated in the United States – however, proponents of the theory of the matrix of domination would argue that this overlooks issues of social class, gender, and age, Powell being an upper class, middle-aged/elderly male.

Postcolonial feminism

through analysis of entrenched power structures in formerly colonized nations, postcolonial feminism explains how economic and political institutions and social practices in those nations often oppress and marginalize women. In addition, it demonstrates how women around the globe struggle for equality and independence for themselves, their families, and their nations.

often referred to as Third World feminism centers around the idea that racism, colonialism, and the long lasting effects (economic, political, and cultural) of colonialism in the postcolonial setting, are inextricably bound up with the unique gendered realities of non-white,and non-Western women. Postcolonial feminists criticize Western feminists because they have a history of universalizing women's issues, and their discourses are often misunderstood to represent women globally.

thus, one of the central ideas in postcolonial feminism is that by using the term 'woman' as a universal group, they are then only defined by their gender and not by social classes and ethnic identities. Also, it is believed by postcolonial feminists that mainstream Western feminists ignored the voices of non-white, non-western women for many years, thus creating resentment from feminists in developing nations.

postcolonial feminists have had strong ties with black feminists because colonialism usually contains themes of racism. Both groups have struggled for recognition, not only by men in their own culture, but also by Western feminists.

Multiracial feminism

refers to the activist and scholarly work conducted by women of color and anti-racist white allies to promote race, class, and gender equality. In comparison to the highly documented second-wave white, middle-class feminism, which centered on abolishing patriarchy and privileged patriarchy as an oppression over all others, women of color feminism resists separating oppression and insists on recognizing the intersectionality of race, class, and gender oppression.

Radical feminism

focuses on the theory of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships based on the assertion that male supremacy oppresses women. Radical feminism aims to challenge and overthrow patriarchy by opposing standard gender roles and oppression of women and calls for a radical reordering of society.

locates the root cause of women's oppression in patriarchal gender relations, as opposed to legal systems (as in liberal feminism) or class conflict (as in socialist feminism and Marxist feminism)

Socialist feminism

argues that liberation can only be achieved by working to end both the economic and cultural sources of women's oppression.

broadens Marxist feminism's argument for the role of capitalism in the oppression of women (and rejects the idea that class and class struggle are the only defining elements of history and economic development) and radical feminism's theory of the role of gender and the patriarchy.

reject radical feminism’s main claim that patriarchy the only or primary source of oppression of women and assert that women are unable to be free due to their financial dependence on males in society. Women are subjects to the male rulers in capitalism due to an uneven balance in wealth. They see economic dependence as the driving force of women’s subjugation to men. Further, socialist feminists see women’s liberation as a necessary part of larger quest for social, economic and political justice.

has been described as the ultimate acceptor of diversity: “multiple truths, multiple roles, multiple realities are part of its focus. There is a rejectance of an essential nature of women, of one-way to be a woman. Poststructural feminism offers a useful philosophy for diversity in feminism because of its acceptance of multiple truths and rejection of essentialism”

Judith Butler on Gender performativity:

sees gender as an act that has been rehearsed, much like a script, and we, as the actors make the script a reality through repetition, thus coming to perform in the mode of belief.

the distinction between the personal and the political or between private and public is itself a fiction designed to support an oppressive status quo: our most personal acts are, in fact, continually being scripted by hegemonic social conventions and ideologies”

sees gender not as an expression of what one is, rather as something that one does. Furthermore, she sees it not as a social imposition on a gender neutral body, but rather as a mode of "self-making" through which subjects become socially intelligible. According to Butler’s theory, homosexuality and heterosexuality are not fixed categories. A person is merely in a condition of “doing straightness” or “doing queerness”

Recommended authors: Mary Joe Frug, Judith Butler, Kate Bornstein

Further reading: Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, A Postmodern Feminist Legal Manifesto

Marxist feminism

focuses on the social institutions of private property and capitalism to explain and criticize gender inequality and oppression.

posits that private property gives rise to economic inequality, dependence, political and domestic struggle between the sexes, and is the root of women's oppression in the current social context.

Chicana feminism

analyzes the historical, social, political, and economic roles of Mexican American, Chicana, and Hispanic women in the United States

Post-structural feminism

emphasizes "the contingent and discursive nature of all identities",[1] and in particular the social construction of gendered subjectivities

resists universalist or normalizing conceptions of women as a group or altogether dismiss the category “woman”. They share with psychoanalytic feminists a skepticism about phallogocentric language and social structures, as well as the French feminist rejection of metanarrative explanations and prescriptive norms for gender and sexuality.

French feminism

is distinguished by an approach which is more philosophical and literary. Its writings tend to be effusive and metaphorical being less concerned with political doctrine and generally focused on theories of "the body". The term includes writers who are not French, but who have worked substantially in France and the French tradition.

Simone de Beauvoir’s analysis focuses on the social construction of Woman as the Other, this de Beauvoir identifies as fundamental to women's oppression. She argues that women have historically been considered deviant and abnormal, and contends that even Mary Wollstonecraft considered men to be the ideal toward which women should aspire. De Beauvoir argues that for feminism to move forward, this attitude must be set aside.

Transnational feminism

attentive to intersections among nationhood, race, gender, sexuality and economic exploitation on a world scale, in the context of emergent global capitalism.

inquires in to the social, political and economic conditions comprising imperialism; their connections to colonialism and nationalism; the role of gender, the state, race, class, and sexuality in the organization of resistance to hegemonies in the making and unmaking of nation and nation-state.

transnational feminist practice is attentive to feminism as both a liberatory formation and one with longstanding ties to colonialism, racism and imperialism. As such, it resists utopic ideas about "global sisterhood" while simultaneously working to lay the groundwork for more productive and equitable social relations among women across borders and cultural contexts.

Atheist Feminism

is a movement that advocates the Feminism within atheism. Atheist feminists also oppose religion as a main source of female oppression and inequality, believing that the majority of the religions are sexist and oppressive to women.

Feminist Theology

is a movement found in several religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and New Thought, to reconsider the traditions, practices, scriptures, and theologies of those religions from a feminist perspective. Some of the goals of feminist theology include increasing the role of women among the clergy and religious authorities, reinterpreting male-dominated imagery and language about God, determining women's place in relation to career and motherhood, and studying images of women in the religion's sacred texts.

For more information about this topic, including sources, authors and organizations, please read our corresponding FAQ section.

I feel like that's an overly narrow understanding of Marxist feminism, but I suppose this is probably true of most other feminisms listed here. Summaries can't really capture a whole philosophy. It's ok as an introduction, so long as they don't start accusing us of economic reductionism.

So many things on the list are so compelling, it's difficult to choose. However, since Marxism is a significant part of my philosophies in most avenues of analysis, this seems to be an accurate choice for me.

I agree. I post there a lot and I'm subscribed there. I often see people there listing THE FEMINAZIS as the root of all MR issues. I'd rather not get banned by interjecting my own ideas on the manner, but saying all feminists hate men is silly.

I frequent the sub, and I agree. I see radical feminists in the same way I see radical Islamists. Any ideology that aims to elevate one gender over another is the very antithesis of equality. Normal, egalitarian feminism and MR activism is a beautiful thing. Anything other that that is a problem.